stuff you find pre-packaged in plastic containers at the local mall is not sushi. It's to sushi what a hamburger is to a good steak. They might look the same, adhere to the same basic technical definition, but really, you're fooling yourself.

We have a grocery store right next door that has real Japanese chefs with real Japanese tools making "boxed" Sushi right there in front of ya. The Sushi they make is really good! It comes with the ginger and the wasabi as well as a small container of soy for just under 6 bucks depending on what you get. I prefer their California rolls but they make many different kinds of Sushi.

I consider this real Sushi and while I would generally agree with you, I would be careful to generalize too much. Although, I admit, I am not a Sushi officionado and you sound like you have way more experience with the authentic stuff than I. However, if you tried to say the same thing to the chefs making the stuff, I wonder what they would say. Heh, I even tried talking to them once. They don't speak Engrish.

I've never been to Japan but I imagine there must be some similar thing out there? *shrug* I could be wrong...but I would think that something like this would be the case out there since Sushi is so popular there.

Get this. There is a Chinese buffet restaurant here that is really good! They also have an all-you-can-eat Sushi bar which again has Japanese (these ones are engrish speaking :) chefs making the Sushi right there before your eyes. That place has some of the best sushi I've ever eaten and its a buffet! They do have a warning stating that if you eat too much of the Sushi at the Sushi bar they will charge you for what you eat...heh. Oh well.

Btw, I mean no disrespect by "engrish" statements. I actually think its a cool way of saying English.

No offense, but I still have a hard time calling those things they sell in a) grocery stores or b) all you can eat places, "sushi". Those things are nasty. They use cheap, low grade fish, and the rice is all fscked. ugh.

If you can't go to Japan, come to Sunnyvale and be ready to spend $150 for a meal. I'll get you real sushi .... ;)

Update: Hmmm, Interesting. I lose reps for this?

Update: Correction, grocery stores in US. Mostly, the ones I know first hand are grocery stores in MidWest in general, Dallas, and the Bay Area (yep, don't like the ones here, either). If you get a sushi thing from a grocery store in Japan, it's definitely doable depending on the store... ;)

The sushi in the grocery stores in Kamakura Japan were pretty good and not nearly as exoensive as the Japanese sushi bars. At least that was true a few years ago. I had some good grocery store sushi in a Bay area grocery while consulting for Apple, too (not Apple ][...), BTW.

Not to rain on your parade, but here in the new york metro area, alot of the sushi chefs who dont seem to speak english are Chinese and not japanese. In fact, alot of the japanese restaurants are chinese owned. Enterprising lads aren't they :)

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